The latest twist in the ongoing settlement talks between Google and book authors is that yesterday, the judge in the case denied an attempt by photographers to become part of the settlement. In the decision (embedded below), Judge Denny Chin basically ruled that photographers are not authors, and that the settlement only covers “word-based material,” with the exception of illustrations in children’s books.
The judge writes that the motion was filed too late, and that in any case, the current settlement does not preclude photographers from bringing their own lawsuit.
The motion to join the suit was brought by the American Society of Media Photographers, the Graphic Artists Guild, the Picture Archive Council of America, the North American Nature Photographers Association, and several individual photographers. The current settlement is between Google and the Author’s Guild.
Obviously, many books include photographs and illustrations. If a book is scanned into Google’s searchable database with a copyrighted image, it appears that Google might still be liable for displaying those images. At least that is what judge Chin suggests when he writes that the settlement does not copyright holders of “pictorial materials and binds them in no way.” I’ve asked Google for clarification on how it intends to deal with such issues.
Update: A google spokesperson responds: ” If the book’s rightsholder also owns the copyrights to the photographs in the book, then those images will be included. If they don’t, then the photographs won’t be displayed.”
Photo credit: Flickr/Mike Baird
Wow, that would have been a mess.
I’ve only skimmed it once, but your characterization of the opinion, “Judge Denny Chin basically ruled that photographers are not authors,” is misleading at best. Photographers are indisputably authors under copyright law, and the opinion makes no suggestion whatsoever to the contrary. He does say, “The holders of pictorial copyrights are differently situated from the holders of textual copyrights,” but this is a far cry from denying them status as authors under copyright law.
“as long as movants retain their right to bring their own lawsuit, they have not been harmed by this litigation… from the perspectives of fairness and efficiency, it makes more sense for the movants to file their own lawsuit than to be permitted to delay this lawsuit.”
this part basically means that photographers are not authors. Basically, denny chin says that only authors are capable of copyrighting and Basically photographers just take pictures and they basically are not “true” artists.
Wow, way to misread a section.
google should get every book, cd, record, tv show, movie, photo, article, engineering blueprint, and email they want since they are all “authored.” it would be great for us if they were to create a searchable database of these works.
Joe you have to compensate the authors of these works, you can’t just have google “take” them and publish them with no consideration to the author.
Link bait headline – extremely misleading.
“google should get every book, cd, record, tv show, movie, photo, article, engineering blueprint, and email they want since they are all “authored.” it would be great for us if they were to create a searchable database of these works.”
I disagree. Google is marching right over copyright law and it looks like the court will let them.
I guess it’s a little better than a couple of years ago when Google started copying everything in sight and displaying it on the web without the author’s permission, but it’s still a massive violation of the authors’ rights.
I believe any ‘opt-out’ system is a severe infringement of authors’ rights. Google should be required to have an explicit contract from every copyright holder before copying their work – just like anyone else would.
Google is evil and I hope they’re stopped. Soon.
Isn’t a picture worth 1000 words?